Alaska Eagle Watch Network keeps an eye on the symbol of America

By Lee Mayhan
Special to the Turnagain Times

The Alaska Eagle Watch Network has been working on the Homer eagle issues since 2001 and wrote the 2006 City of Homer “Nuisance Bird Ordinance” that prohibits the intentional feedings of Bald Eagles.

Homer eagles are OK. They are more spread out and the family of adults and sub-adults near my home have returned to their nesting area today. Since they aren't being fed and habituated to stay on the Homer Spit in the hundreds like they have been for 20 years, some have spread out more on East End Road in Homer where I live.

I have been to the Spit this winter and there are about 80 eagles there more or less then last year when there was 278 at this time.

Bald eagles will gather naturally in large groups in the winter helping to teach the sub-adults how and where to get food. There are a good number of winter eagles at the Homer Landfill as well as the Soldotna Landfill. There has always been large groups of winter bald eagles in other areas of Alaska.

I did interview the landfill workers and they all said that they do not disturb the bald eagles, allow no one to get too close to them and get rid of wastes that may be hazardous to them if they eat it.

My guess for the bald eagle abundance in Alaska's coastal communities is that they do fine fending for themselves.

That is why we must educate in our coastal communities about any activities that may harm bald eagles and that would include intentionally feeding them.

The Kenai Peninsula's extensive ocean frontage, lakes and rivers is just the perfect natural habitat for bald eagles.

For fun, I like to go to Johnson Lake on the Kenai when Fish and Game stock the lake with trout. The eagles are on it, and it is great to watch them go after this food source.

Bald eagles can forage for themselves naturally off the landscape.

I felt because of all the publicity in the media when the bald eagles were on the Endangered Species List in the Lower 48 that some people felt that the bald eagle in Alaska needed to be fed to survive. Alaska has 40,000 bald eagles (2005 U.S Fish and Wildlife Service estimate) and they have never been endangered in Alaska.

When you think of how big a raptor this is, 12- 14 pounds, and what it has in its predator tool box—beaks that crush, claws that tear and rip, eagle eye, the ability to snag prey on the ground and ride off with it—and yet some have treated the bald eagle as not having the ability to survive on its own.

The bald eagle unlike many top predators has different strategy for feeding itself: hunting and killing live prey, scavenging, and stealing food from other birds.

I wondered where the bald eagles went after the winter feedings on the Homer Spit ended each April. The current thought was that they took off to their nesting areas in Alaska's vast wilderness. So we followed them and found just as we thought, some didn't go very far.

We traveled not only on the Kenai Peninsula but took our boat over to Kachemak Bay and boated and kayaked our way around, counting as many eagles and nests as we could and had people count areas and report to us.

It was simple, the bald eagles stayed in the area in the summer because of the salmon runs, halibut charter scraps, fish in the lakes and ocean and the ducks, birds and small mammals to prey on.

Bald eagles are migratory birds and tagged bald eagles in California have been spotted at Chilkat Preserve in Haines, thousands of miles away.

With an abundance of food available in Alaska's coastal communities for bald eagles, there is a mystery to me of “local” wild bald eagles who stay in an area and some that show up who indeed may be non-residents.

While some nests for years in one place, some adults without a mate and sub-adults may migrate somewhere else to seek a nesting territory. Yet, other adults come back to the same nesting spot bringing their sub-adult offspring.

We did ask the United States Fish and Wildlife Service why the nest statistics on the Kachemak Bay bald eagles were last done in 1992 (in relation to the Valdez oil spill) and got the answer, “if it's not broke don't fix it.” The eagle populations are fine so no need to do anything we were told.

I was then told that some bald eagles were banded after the Valdez oil spill and did migrate to the Homer area from Prince William Sound.

The ending of the bald eagle feeding in Homer was a long battle, but I can tell you that it had very little to do with the health and safety of the birds and was, as I thought it would be, a public health and safety issue.

Homer has moved forward because it is the right thing to do. I photographed the Homer eagles this winter and they look better than last year at this time when they had to fight for every scrap of food.

I am pleased, for the most part, to see many more eagles who aren't dirty, greasy headed with their feathers messy lurking around for a free handout. That is also what we found through our “citizen science “observations—eagles will stay five to seven days in the same area looking for food even when the food source was taken away. But they are smart and will move on quickly.

Lee Mayhan is a resident of Homer and active in the Alaska Eagle Watch Network.